The present invention Label Remover relates to devices that are used to remove labels that are affixed to various types of containers, all types of paper and carton folders and packages, plastic made products and various other materials.
The necessity for creation and usage of similar devices is derived from the fact that labels on shipping boxes, packages, and various types of folders carry certain sensitive and confidential information such as order numbers, customer and account numbers, asset tag numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and other proprietary information. In the hands of an identity thief, that information can be used with detrimental intent. Consistently escalating popularity of identity theft, fraud and other related crimes necessitate the creation of a device to easily and effectively remove information located on labels that are affixed to various types of objects. The proposed Label Remover provides safe and complete removal of labels from shipping materials, folders and other objects for purposes of security, reusability of materials, as well as removal for replacement of old labels with newer labels that carry updated information.
The patent search results revealed that numerous devices have already been patented, which attempt to solve these or similar problems. Those include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,946,750; 4,114,267; 4,325,775; 4,599,131; 5,152,865; 5,536,355; 5,587,096; 5,679,210; and 6,158,493. The closest functional usage matches with regards to the present invention are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,114,267; 5,679,210; and 6,158,393;
Device listed under U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,267 is used for removal of flat labels. The removal process is carried out fully via manual effort and with the use of a sharpened blade. This device exhibits the following shortcomings:
The practical usage of such device is labor consuming and requires significant manual effort resulting in definitive low productivity.
The process requires precise amounts of manual pressure to be exerted on the label's surface which is difficult to control by manual efforts. Applying more pressure then necessary is likely to cause damage to the processing surface area. Applying less pressure then necessary is likely to cause incomplete label removal.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,679,210 shows a manual finger actuated label removing apparatus. The device shares the manual approach with the above mentioned device, and delivers low levels of productivity due to the obvious limitations of a device that uses the human finger as leverage. As with previous device, this method does not provide safe label removal without causing probable damage to the surface area of the object, for instance a carton box which can otherwise be reused.
In device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,158,493, a handheld apparatus is designed to fully detach labels from objects such as a carton package. In actuality, paper labels do not detach equally and fully. The areas of the label that were exposed to slightly higher amounts of glue would require an adjusted balanced effort in order to be properly removed. The design of this device overlooks that very fact and as a result will fail to effectively detach the labels fully from the targeted surface. As with the previous devices, the process of fully detaching the label from the surface of an object is labor consuming, requires significant amounts of time and effort, and is generally impractical.